Winnipeg City Councillor Wants MMA Banned

After Friday’s Canadian Fighting Championship card resulted in a serious injury to one competitor, a local Winnipeg city councillor has started taking steps to having the sport banned in Winnipeg.

St. Charles Councillor Grant Nordman would like to see the sport banned after Dean Lewis was taken by ambulance from the event and hospitalized. Calling the people who watched Friday’s card “ghouls”, he has asked the city’s community services department to investigate ways to have the sport disallowed in Winnipeg.

Dean Lewis’ condition has stabilized after going to the hospital in bad shape. The fighter is eating and was diagnosed with a concussion and bleeding on the brain according to his mother. Lewis is now eating, talking, and walking around on the road to recovery although Dr. Pilat, the fight doctor who tended to him, states that he should not train again.

What exactly happened that resulted in Mr. Lewis being injured to that degree? I hate to say it but far too often commissions hire Boxing Refs who are functionally useless when it comes to reffing MMA. I can only speculate as I wasn’t there but unless Mr. Lewis’ opponent hits like a Mac Truck I’d guess a late stoppage on the part of the ref would be the next liekly cause.

Unfortunately when these events happen it doesn’t make the sport look good and people will react negatively.

I have to say that as much as i do not like what this counselor is asking for, name calling is not the way to get your views across. I don’t normally say much but when I have an opinion like this I have to say something. I do not like it when someone, especially politicians, jumps on an incident and tries to make himself known in a community. On the internet we call them trolls.

First calling us ghouls for watching mma is ridiculous. It is no different than watching a moose game or any other hockey game on tv and wanting to see a fight. Fighting that occurs in a sport that isn’t intended in the sport is much worse and these fighters are not protected as mma, boxing, etc.

I was at the CFC event this past weekend and during the fight in question, I did not at any point during the fight see that Dean Lewis was in trouble. Other than bleeding from his nose, he was intelligently defending himself and fighting back. It wasn’t like he was being overwhelmed by Eric Perez.

If he thinks this sport is too violent then lets ban hockey, football, lacrosse, boxing, and any other sport that includes any sort of person to person contact.

Mr Nordman why do you not spend your time trying to ban the sport of car theft, where teenagers steal cars, run down cops, and only spend a couple days in the penalty box for their actions?

Hey I was there at the fights and the fight went back and forth. It wasn’t like you guy was dominating the fight. If it was the ref would have stopped it along with the doctors. On the other hand obviously the cornerman felt his fighter was doing fine or he would have stopped it. Its unfortunte what happened but it it is a professional contact sport and things like this happen . These are trained atheletes ( not 2 guys scrapping after the bar) I’m sure the city councillor is trying to make a name for himself or just dosent understand the sport. The boxing commission did everything to ensure the fighters safety and thats all we can expect. Tell the city councillor take up some other crusade cause as far as I can see he obviously has nothing else to talk about.

The councillor is just huffin n puffin… MMA in MB is not goin any where. If he banns it here we’ll go to sask, the states… our basements… etc. This is a sanctioned event with doctors and paramedics and the gov’t can’t risk a death in a non-sanctioned event if they put a Ban on MMA. The whole rant will blow over. Dean Lewis and his parents all said that banning the sport would be wrong/pointless. So there ya have it.

What I saw was an even fight between two well matched fighters. What happened to Lewis was an anomaly. Nobody can plan for that, but he was well taken care of by the medical staff present. None of the fighters get into this without knowing the possible outcome. For us to judge is wrong. History has given us a many stories of fighting, this is one of the latest.

You know I was going to make fun of Pro-Good and any others who would choose to make a mockery out of this situation but lets face it, injuries are going to happen in any sport. It is unfortunate and as much as I feel for Lewis I would rather see a sanctioned fight where injuries like this can be attended to as opposed to the alternative. I hope this sport continues to grow within Manitoba and with it the perception of the sport as it is intended, exciting fights with the number one consideration being figher safety.

Do they have any idea how many hockey players go to the hospital on a continual basis? Have they not read about the hockey player who DIED during a hockey fight, another one who had a concussion after a fight……guys swinging sticks at each others heads, the Bertuzzi incident….the list could go on but no one would ever, ever consider banning hockey. And have you ever seen some fans at hockey games? Now there are some ghouls! Its just such a ridiculous arguement.

These people who know nothing about MMA are crazy. I wonder if they would like to ban, Hockey, Football, Boxing, Nascar for christ sakes has deaths often, including fans in the stands are not entirely safe.

there probably has been less serious catastrophic injuries in MMA then 99% of sports including cheer leading.

it is too bad people who are completely clueless push so hard. If they stepped back and looked at the facts they would realize how stupid they look. there is absolutely no evidence that shows MMA is more dangerous then any other sport. None!